Ben’s First Week at TDi

The last two and a half months have been a bit of a blur for me. A Perth native, I have been living in London for the last four years and in early December I decided to tack on some time in Melbourne to a trip to WA.

I thought while I was in Melbourne, I would reach out to some like-minded people who were also grappling with some of the issues I had been working on in London – namely thinking about how we change the conversation around business and cultivate a new generation of entrepreneurs who care about more than just making money.

A contact in London told me to reach out to TDi, and without a doubt that was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. I met with our co-founder Paul Steele (thanks in no small part to the wondrous work of his PA Jacqui) in the School of Life, downstairs from TDi’s office. He suggested I meet with Bessi and Anthea, TDi’s CEO and Deputy CEO.

“I am so excited to go out and talk to entrepreneurs about what we deliver because I know with supreme confidence that they are being guided not only by some of the brightest minds in the world, but also by people who have been there, done that”

The next day, and less than 24 hours before I was due to fly back to London, I met Bessi and Anthea in the TDi office. I hope they don’t mind me saying, but I felt incredibly inspired by what they had to say, and I just knew that this was a place where I wanted to focus my work.

I’ve been privileged enough to meet some of the most outstanding people over the course of my career who imagine a world where business is part of the solution to the problems we face. However, Bessi and Anthea were applying a rigour and pragmatism to their work that truly felt cutting edge.

A week after my first meeting, I found myself on a Skype call with Anthea, being offered the chance to pack up my life in London and begin a new chapter in Melbourne. Six weeks later I touched down.

From my first week working with TDi alone, I feel like I’ve made the right choice. Every single person I’ve met here is incredibly intelligent, passionate, opinionated (in a great way!) and willing to roll up their sleeves and dive in in order to try and fulfil our ambition of building businesses that want to tackle some of the world’s most pressing problems.

As for the Two Feet program where I’ll be spending most of my time, I am so excited to go out and talk to entrepreneurs about what we deliver. I know with supreme confidence that they are being guided not only by some of the brightest minds in the world, but also by people who have been there, done that and know just how challenging it is to start and run a business that wants to do something more than make money.

When was the last time you asked your customers what they thought? We use Customer Empathy Interviews to help businesses deeply understand their customers and design competitive products and services. It’s also been one of our top coaching tips for business owners...

A conversation with Geert from FarmWallGeert Hendrix founded FarmWall in 2016. Farmwall is an agrifood-tech startup that designs urban farming technology and experiences to enhance fresh produce accessibility in the city. In our constantly developing world, the need...

It’s one thing to make the choice to work from home, but it’s another to be forced to for reasons beyond your control. Even the seasoned work from homers are feeling the pinch in this time of forced isolation – I am no exception!! Oh, and throw in supervision of remote learning for your children and it’s even more challenging.

Two weeks ago, I shared with the team an analogy of a campsite. I reflected that our house has burnt down and we are struggling to reconcile the shock and the grief of all that is happening. I shared with them that I’ve been thinking that we need to set up camp, for now while we figure out how to reinvent for the new normal. We have a temporary place of residence and it’s not what we would have chosen but we can create from it. So, for the past two weeks, we have been focused on getting the campsite set up, trying to work out where stuff goes, who’s sleeping where and how to trade out of a tent.

Meet Difference Maker James Morgan and cultural tourism entrepreneur. James was a participant of our most recent Indigenous Business Australia (IBA) Accelerator Program. “I feel privileged to have an education, but I had to move away. I want to create more...

It fascinated us that creative industries aren’t included in Papua New Guinea’s GDP, in fact there is very little data to understand the economic impact of creative industries in PNG. This is staggering considering that creative industries represent $US2.250 Billion in the global economy (World Economic Forum, 2015). This includes all creative industries including visual arts, media, TV, music etc. Other research suggests Handicrafts contributes around US$32 Billion to the global economy (The Aspen Institute Artisan Alliance) but this is a difficult figure to nail down when whole economies don’t even count handicrafts in their GDP.

Other interesting facts from the World Economic Forum’s study found that Creative industries are more inclusive employers employing more youth (15-29 years) than any other sector, employ a higher percentage of women compared to other sectors globally and small business makes up a large portion of this sector as well. In the US artists are 3.5 times more likely to be self-employed.

What is TDi? This is a question we are asked all the time, and have struggled to answer with real clarity. TDi started as a private quest in response to societal problems, long before it became a public conversation which culminated into the entity today we call The...

We Work With

Case Studies

The TDi team acknowledges that we work, live and play on Aboriginal land, our offices are located on the land of the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin nation & we pay respect to their elders past present and future. Where ever our work takes us, we acknowledge the traditional land owners and pay our respects.